Hotel Lights – Hotel Lights (2006)
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Hotel Lights - Hotel Lights

Holy crap, is this record mellow. It couldn’t get any mellower if it had been recorded by Mellow McMellowstein and His Mellow Fellows, titled Mellow Gold, and produced by Gilbert fucking O’Sullivan.

This album is so mellow, if records were middle-school students, then Hotel Lights would be getting its ass kicked and lunch money stolen by Death Cab for Cutie’s Plans. These thirteen tracks exist suspended in a soft-focus haze. They are barely there.

If Andrew Gold were to listen to Hotel Lights, he would say to no one in particular, “Damn. This is one mellow record.”

Hotel Lights is the brainchild of Darren Jessee, the former drummer for the Ben Folds Five. This is ironic, considering that the BPM on this album rarely rises above, oh, 30. Or maybe 35. If Hotel Lights were to appear on American Bandstand, and Dick Clark were to ask one of the kids in the audience what they thought of “Miles Behind Me” (download), or perhaps “The Mumbling Years” (download), that kid would say, “It doesn’t have a good beat, Dick. And I can’t dance to it.”

You should not listen to Hotel Lights while working out at the gym.

About the Author

Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes and a number of other sites. Hey, why not follow him at Twitter while you're at it?

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